Welcome to Galibier Design. From Colorado's Rocky Mountain foothills comes a company driven by a love of music, and fueled
with the passion to blend modern technology and the spirit of old-world craftsmanship - serving the goal of bringing music
alive in your home.
As you navigate our website, we encourage your feedback to help us make it a one-stop analog reproduction resource.
Check our news page and our blog for updates
and announcements.
Our Goals:
To expand your record collection
With all too many "high resolution" systems, you find yourself listening to only your best recordings. Your average and
mediocre pressings (many of which are your favorite pieces) sit neglected and unplayed.
We consider this to be not only unnecessary but a crime against art.
A Galibier turntable and its supporting products will have you pulling out all of those records you once considered unplayable.
We do not sacrifice resolution in order to accomplish this goal, and when we demonstrate this to you, it will open your eyes,
your ears, your heart, and your record collection. When you come to audition a Galibier, bring some of your unlistenable vinyl.
We can think of no higher goal than to return a world of music for your pleasure.
To help you make better sense of the musical intent of the composer and the artist.
Music is communicative and evocative. A component that cannot meet this basic criterion is not high fidelity - it
isn’t faithful to the spirit - the life of the music.
We approach our task the way a good ensemble musician does - to go unnoticed and to serve the music.
We consider the "accuracy vs. musicality argument" to miss the point. When you hear our products, we think you'll agree.
A component that is truly accurate also serves the music.
Reproduction of music is about reproducing a living, breathing performance - cut from a single piece of fabric.
When you listen to a Galibier component, this will all begin to make sense to you. Everything else is just prestige and sound effects.
Our Philosophy:
At Galibier, follows function. As we work toward producing audio sculpture which graces the top shelf of your equipment
stand, we will never subordinate product development to marketing and cosmetics.
In our product development we maintain focus on retaining backward compatibility with our installed base of customers.
A modular design approach serves both our quest for ultimate sound and the best interest of our customers - by
reducing development costs and lead times which allows us to explore designs that would not otherwise be possible
for a small, specialist company.
In support of this concept, we offer a generous trade-up policy for many components. At the same time, we focus
on issuing mature and stable designs.
Unlike some audio companies who's product life cycles resemble those
of the typical microprocessor, we work hard to ensure that your investment retains both its sonic and monetary
value.
Our Business Model:
We are an "Internet Direct" company, but this only begins to tell the story.
The nature of our products demands that we spend considerable time with our clients. Helping you to make a purchasing
decision is only the beginning of the process. Ensuring that you derive both value and musical enjoyment from them is the goal.
Toward this end, we work with very few individuals at a given time.
Our direct distribution model removes one "pricing layer" from the equation. Do not judge a Galibier product on price.
We encourage you to compare our Galibier Turntables, Schroeder and Triplanar Tonearms, Artemis Labs, and Dynavector products
against the price no object designs. You will be cheating yourself if you do not.
Our model is evolving. Check the audition section of our website as we begin to work with
a select number of owners who will serve as "Global Auditioning Points" for our products.
We never stand still, and your feedback is encouraged. Our aim is to provide you with service and satisfaction in creative
ways - service that a brick and mortar business model cannot provide.
Why buy from a small, specialist company?
Ultimately, unless you hear our products, or are recommended to us by someone whom you trust, nothing we say can
or should convince you.
Integrity, Reliability, and Support
A large company is no guarantee of current or future product support. There are good companies of all sizes. There
is frequently however, an inverse relationship between company size and support.
We're confident that everything produced under our roof could be willed to your heirs. A necessary part of a
conservative design involves understanding materials and selecting ones appropriate to the task.
We select materials with a proven track record of dimensional stability over time and work to
understand how they can best serve the function of musical reproduction. We see no conflict between our musical
aesthetic and our products being in service for a very long time.
Regarding motors, like every other turntable manufacturer we know of, we exercise no manufacturing control. Our
only control lies in their specification. Our motor company has sent motors to Mars, and they will be in
business for a long time. The motor we specify has a mean time before failure of 20,000 hours.
Many fine, large manufacturers have dropped support of older products in their line as they mature. Other
companies congratulate themselves for supporting a problematic design rather than taking action to correct their
design flaws. For one opinion on other manufacturers' approaches to product support, entertain yourself with the
following comments in
Audio Asylum.
All of this is to say that company size is the last criterion you should use when selecting an audio product.
Sustainable Designs
At Galibier, we take pride in releasing mature, stable designs with common components (motor controllers, bearings
and platters), conservatively designed to ensure the reliability, performance, and value of your investment.
Serviceability:
Our components are designed with field serviceability and replacement in mind. Modularity supports this goal.
Hot-Swappable Motor Controller Assembly
In the unlikely occurrence that you need support, you can change your controller more easily than you can change the
sound card on your computer.
User Replaceable Bearing Thrust Interface
Again, we've never seen a failure, but in the highly unlikely event that this is necessary, it can be easily replaced by the end-user.
Furthermore, assume the worst case scenario - that Galibier closes its doors and you need to service your
turntable. Using the example of the thrust plate, one can easily be machined in your home town and you'd be
ready for your next 50 years of vinyl playback for about the same price that the average CD would set you back.
Most turntables experiencing a similar problem would require that the entire bearing be replaced. If the turntable
in question is an out of production model, you would be faced with scouring the market for a used bearing, or
worse yet, you would find yourself in the design and manufacturing business to produce a new one.
Easily Serviced Motor Controller Circuit
It can be serviced by anyone who knows how to solder on a printed circuit board. No special tools or logic chip programming hardware
is required.
Our controller uses readily available components which are over specified for their intended use. The voltage regulator in our motor
controller is specified for 140 times the steady-state current draw of the motor!
The mystery with our motor controller lies not only in how it works so well, but how it can do so while being so simple and reliable!
Our Name:
Pronunciation: Guh-lih-bee-yay
Galibiers are made in the U.S.A.
Our hearts and minds are here in the mountains of Colorado, but we admire the great traditions of European bicycling and Alpinism.
In honor of these traditions, we christened our turntable line with names that remind us of this tradition - serving as a
continuing source of inspiration and reminder of the triumph of will over adversity for the analog heights we work to achieve.
The Col du Galibier is one of the highest mountain passes in the French Alps (Col is French for mountain pass). It has been
the scene of countless epic battles throughout the storied past of bicycle racing's Super Bowl - the Tour de France.
For more on the history and meanings behind these names, link to the product pages for our
Gavia and Stelvio turntables.
Our Origins:
Much has been made of the open source software development model and how it helped to spawn the new generation of turntables
available over the last few years.
Link to the Family Tree section where we trace the origins of our company
in the context of recent developments in vinyl playback.
Thanks for visiting,
Thom Mackris
